9to5Mac Happy Hour

The bundle includes two Sonos One speakers for $349 — the same price as a single HomePod — which is a $50 discount from the usual $400 price at $199 each. In the UK, the same bundle is available for £349, although the HomePod is priced a bit lower at £319.

Sonos One (reviewed) includes Alexa integration for voice control that works with various music services including Spotify, but Apple Music control by voice is limited to play/pause and volume control.

For HomePod, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts can be fully controlled by voice with Siri, but Spotify and other services will require peer-to-peer AirPlay to work and playback controls will be limited to play/pause and volume.

Apple has positioned HomePod as a better-sounding speaker than the Sonos Play:3 which recently saw a price drop, and the Sonos One is even lower in the lineup. The comparison of a single HomePod to two Sonos One speakers in a stereo setup, however, may be trickier.

For its part, HomePod will ship without stereo support or multi-room audio playback for whole home audio. Both features will be added later in the year when AirPlay 2 is finalized.

Speaking of AirPlay 2, Sonos announced back in October that its speakers would work with AirPlay 2 sometime in 2018. Apple’s new streaming protocol has seen delays in shipping, however, but Sonos has reaffirmed its commitment to support AirPlay 2 this year.

As someone who has invested in a number of Sonos speakers over the years but plans to buy a HomePod or two, I’m greatly looking forward to being able to command Siri to play music or podcasts in different rooms on both HomePod and Sonos using AirPlay 2.